


Winter's Porcupine

by Liara_90



Series: Tales of Snow and Iron [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Character Study, One Shot, Post-Volume 2 (RWBY), Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7223479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know the parable of the porcupine's dilemma? Two porcupines might want to get closer to each other, but they can't, not without hurting themselves with the other's quills.</p><p>A minific about Winter Schnee, and her relationship with Weiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter's Porcupine

**Author's Note:**

> " _A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another._ "
> 
> \- Arthur Schopenhauer, _Parerga and Paralipomena_ (1851)

You're awake before sunrise, the sound of an alarm echoing through your quarters a mere five-and-a-half hours after you’d laid down for the night. Once upon a time you would have thought it madness to try to function on so little sleep, but it was now so routine that you barely needed the alarm. The need to sleep, after all, was just one more imperfection. And your whole life had been a process of whittling away at those.

_"I'm not perfect… not yet."_

You're out of your bed a moment later, barely cognizant of how warm and soft it still feels. A clap of your hands illuminates the room, a harsh white light springing dutifully to life. Your quarters are small - a fraction the size of your childhood bedroom - but they're private, and in the Atlesian military that's a luxury greater than a four-poster bed with silken sheets. The absence of almost any personal affects somehow makes the room feel even more cavernous.

You roll your neck, pausing only momentarily to assess the lingering soreness in your muscles. You've been pushing yourself hard lately - harder than usual, that is. The Grimm attack in downtown Vale was just the latest in a string of very unusual incidents, incidents which have imbued in you the belief that something _bad_ is about to happen. That feeling has only motivated you to be more prepared, to be stronger, to be _better_.

You open your Scroll a minute later, typing in twenty characters of alphanumeric gibberish to unlock it. You scan the dozens of emails that arrived in the few hours you slumbered, mentally prioritizing them. Military, political, and economic reports from the four corners of Remnant. The day's schedule of activities for Atlas Academy, as well as your own daily agenda. Financial reports for the Schnee Dust Company and the global Dust market. Reports on Grimm, militant Faunus, and transnational criminal activity…

Nothing urgent, in other words. More specifically, no word from General Ironwood in Vale. He's kept the details of his trip secret, secrecy far out of proportion to the security concerns the Vytal Festival Tournament should warrant. Given how you've practically been his shadow since graduation, the sudden distance, both physical and operational, is… unsettling.

You banish those thoughts by throwing yourself into your morning calisthenics. Push-ups, lunges, crunches, squats… you move your body at a punishing pace, nothing but your labored breaths echoing in the solitude of your quarters. What your exercise lacks in length it makes up for in intensity… several times over. Almost every soldier slacks off to some degree once their training is complete and they settle into a daily grind, but not you. Your regimen has only grown more punishing, to be worthy of the title "Specialist".

_"I'm not perfect… not yet."_

The words come unbidden to the front of your mind, providing some minimal distraction from the burning in your legs. It was a joke, at first, one of the few you'd shared with your sister. Your Father _loved_ calling attention to your imperfections, at least in private, and there were _always_ some to be found. Only later did you realize that it had been one of his many tools of control. How could you possibly dare standing on your own when you were such a flawed creature? Any test score, any ballet recital, any dress or makeup or hairstyle. _Imperfect. Imperfect. Imperfect_.

So you'd started saying the line whenever someone _did_ call you perfect. It was an excellent retort. Self-deprecating, but not _actually_. Feigning modesty without ever really conceding anything. The fact that it was a veiled twist on Father's favorite denigration was an inside joke only his daughters would ever be privy to.

You wrap up your morning routine, a thin layer of sweat already sticking to your undergarments. You discard them a moment later, preparing yourself for a brief date with the Academy's perennially under-heated showers-

A chime on your Scroll informs you of a new message, and that particular sound has been reserved for one person only. Your fingers fly across your Scroll as you decrypt the message from your sister, unthinkingly seating yourself at your desk as you wait for the message to finish downloading.

Weiss' missive flashes in front of you a moment later. Her prose is overly-formal, as always, but that's just the way you were both raised. It honestly sounds like a letter written a century or so ago, which would be funny if it didn't reflect the _oddness_ of your relationship. Weiss can little more open up to you than she could a stranger off the street, but she forces herself to try all the same. She still loves and admires you, that much you know without doubt - no matter what poison your Father has poured in her ear - but she still doesn't know how to interact with you. Not like you know much better, of course, but you have the luxury of being _reached out to_ instead of doing the reaching.

Weiss hasn't figured out how to really talk about herself, that much is obvious, nor her personal life at Beacon. The closest she gets is talking about her Team, and the mess of a leader this Ruby Rose is. You'd been baffled when you'd learned some no-name Patch Islander had been given a leadership position over your sister, but the General had reminded you that Ozpin always did things in his own way. If there was a reason other than to be confounding then you had yet to discern it, though you took a certain pleasure in imagining what your Father's reaction had been…

Most of the rest of the email consists of Weiss trying to make herself useful. Assessments of her peers and which are likely to be headhunted by their national militaries. A few details about the enhanced security measures in downtown Vale. Your Father's increasingly-frequent demands of her.

The only real surprise comes at the bottom of the message, where the prose becomes an order of magnitude less stilted. As "proof that I have not been lax in my studies," she's attached an essay she'd recently completed for a Literature class. You open the attached file and find a scan of her document, an _A+_ in dark red marker in the top-right corner of the page. You grin just a little at that. Weiss very rarely took genuine pride in her work - and when she did she never allowed herself to gush about it, even to you. But it was something she felt _happy_ about, something her undoubtedly boorish teammates would be unable to fully appreciate. And expecting praise from Father was an exercise in either futility or masochism.

It was an essay on the epic poem _Hrunting_ , which was one of your favorites, and an appropriate choice for Huntsmen-in-training. The poem was ancient, bordering on prehistoric, and was an epic saga describing how the discovery of Dust had lead to Humanity's early triumphs against the Grimm. Or at least, that's what the poem is _now_ understood to be. To the nameless scribe of the poem Dust had been indistinguishable from magic, Grimm were the demons from the Afterlife, Auras and Semblances the blessings of a pantheon of deities. Most students of the poem these days enjoyed it for that reason alone - going back and trying to cross-reference the descriptions of devils against the taxonomy of known Grimm, or trying to figure out which crystals of Dust had lead to the victories of its heroes.

You - and, it became readily apparent, Weiss - knew that there was more to the poem than that. Too many readers couldn't see the forest for the trees, missed the message being conveyed between lines of battle and slaughter. It was a story of courage in the absence of strength, of hope in absence of light. It was a rallying cry, a challenge, a call to stand together and spit in the face of destiny. _That_ was what the poem was about. Whether Oscar the Great's sword had been imbued with Fire or Lightning Dust was besides the point. Your sister understood that, and that fills you with _pride_.

You type up a response a minute later, fingers flying across your Scroll as you write at the speed of thought. Whichever professor had graded it had felt the need to deduct a few points for 'Style', giving Weiss a mere 97% on the grading rubric just so that they could feel vaguely useful. Absurd. None of Weiss' interpretations were particularly novel, but she weaved them together into possibly the most eloquent analysis of the poem that you've ever read. Her deconstruction of the recurring themes of 'farewells and remembrances' strikes you as particularly inspired.

You finish your message and tap 'Send' a moment later, snapping the Scroll shut without a moment's pause. Beacon and Atlas Academy are almost in the same time zone, so your sister must have been up early to send that to you. You wondered if 'Ruby's' reported hyperactivity meant she was an early riser. Weiss certainly wasn't, to her own vague annoyance. You smile, faintly. Waking up 'Lady Weiss' had always been left to whichever maid drew the shortest straw.

Shaking your head, you return to your daily routine, and the pressing need for a shower. You step under the spray, barely suppressing a _hiss_ as the frigid water hits your skin. You've never been able to figure out if the showers are _always_ cold due to an engineering limitation in the century-old building or simply a way of toughening up the new recruits. If the answer is the latter, then it certainly works. Anyone who complained to the staff about the heat was usually a good bet to wash out within weeks.

You finishing showering less than five minutes later, having soaped and shampooed with ruthless efficiency. Your vast knowledge of cosmetology was rendered irrelevant by the enforced asceticism of barrack life, and for a while you had barely minded. Your Father had always loved to trot you out like a prize-winning poodle, have people trip over themselves in their haste to fawn over your beauty. The Schnee Dust Company always needs good PR, and what fodder for marketing you had been. It became only more unsettling after puberty, when you finally realized that Father had no inhibitions about using your blossoming sex appeal in ad campaigns, in the concerts and TV specials that made people think of 'beauty' instead of 'Dust mines' when they heard the name _'Schnee'_.

The fact that he was already doing the same with your sister was sickening. When you'd first struck out on your own, going bare-faced had been but one more act of defiance.

You returned to your bedroom still dripping wet, toweling off as quickly as possible. Modern insulation hadn't been around when most of the Academy was built, and while there was a certain prestige in being quartered in the oldest part of the building, it also meant forgoing proper HVAC.

With General Ironwood away the management of Atlas Academy's day-to-day operations is yours. Practically if not officially, at least. There might be a dozen people on the org chart who have a better claim to running things in his absence, but none he trusts as much as you. It's the weekend, which means no meetings with anyone outside the Academy. Quite frankly you'll probably do little more than sit in an office approving cafeteria expenses and overtime pay. For all the General's talents _delegation_ is certainly not one of them, and his absence reminds you of just how pervasive his oversight of the Academy is. Even _you_ wonder how he finds time to sleep with all his micro-managing…

You slip effortlessly into casual fatigues, knowing you wouldn't be wielding your name and your reputation today. _That_ is a rare luxury. Any day that 'outsiders' are involved you almost always garb yourself in an elegant white coat and other garments befitting aristocracy, because you've gradually realized that it's easier to play into people's expectations than rage impotently against them. As much as you wanted to be treated as any other soldier, judged on merit and performance alone, you'd barely set foot in boot camp when it became apparent that asking that of others was asking the impossible. Not when everyone had already seen you as a _prima ballerina_ in dozens of SDC-sponsored performances, promotions for which had spanned every market and medium. When someone saw a Schnee they expected wealth, elegance, otherworldly beauty - your Father's company had etched that into the collective consciousness with millions of lien of advertising.

Nobody expected you in camouflage fatigues and your hair in a tight bun. It was impossible to overlook the reality that people caught a glimpse of your snow white hair and leapt blindly to judgment. With General Ironwood's unspoken approval you'd stopped pretending to be just another soldier, and started looking the way Schnees were _expected_ to. It was an infuriating concession - a tacit admission that your Father had won - but there was no denying the effect that amping your beauty up to eleven had. The SDC had branded you its "Snow Queen" and the name had stuck, though you'd made it a far more imperious title than they'd ever intended.

Another chime on your scroll indicates a response from Weiss. You're curiosity is admittedly rather piqued. Through unspoken arrangement you normally write to each other only infrequently, once a week at the most. Neither of you are prepared for much more intimacy, not after a lifetime of being pitted against one another. Your Father had raised his daughters to be eternal rivals, forever vying for his praise while eyeing each other warily. Even now, when you can see your Father's manipulations clear as day, overcoming a lifetime of his machinations doesn't come easily to either of you.

You open Weiss' message - it's far shorter than its predecessor, a single terse line on your Scroll. You feel something tightening around your gut. " _Thank you for your criticism. I will aspire to do better in the future._ "

Your stomach sinks, and your fingers fly to retrieve the message you'd sent off to Weiss. You actually feel a wave of nausea as you look over the words, suddenly so alien and unfamiliar. " _The imagery is the result of a scribe's copying error between the second and third codexes and should_ not _be used to support this argument._ " You scroll down. " _The scribe almost certainly spoke a different language than the original oral poets, so drawing parallels with Archaic Mantle cannot be justified._ " You blink. " _You should have restructured this section's arguments so it would be organically supported by the quotes in the paragraphs below, as it stands it is a nonsensical coda._ "

You stare at your message, almost in disbelief. With fresh eyes it's a completely different letter. There's no trace of the pride you'd felt reading Weiss' essay, none of the warmth at having discovered your shared tastes in poetry. You hadn't mentioned how you'd re-read that poem time and time again in a bedroom lit only by moonlight, how the sense of honor and duty so beautifully encapsulated in those words may well have inspired you to become a Huntress. Why hadn't you…

You can't respond now, it would feel too awkward, too _forced_. Weiss would see it and think whatever kind words you wrote were just trying to paper over a _faux pas_. You slam your Scroll shut, angrily, berating yourself for your idiocy. For your insensitivity. For your _imperfection_. It was undoubtedly not her intent, but Weiss' words had cut like a sword. She could make you feel like a heartless monster, and you couldn't argue with her, even in your head. Of all the things to screw up, how could you have done it with a letter to your sister? How had you managed to fuck up a simple gesture of friendship?

With a wordless snarl you storm out of your quarters, slamming the door shut behind you. There aren't a lot of students awake at this hour, but those few you pass have the good sense to stay out of your way. None of them can miss the furious expression on your face, and while they curtsey and bow in accordance with protocol, they keep their eyes averted. 

You know that 'Ice Queen' is only the politest of the nicknames they apply to you. You're furious enough that you have half a mind to pick a fight with one, just to see what happens.

You break into a sprint as soon as you step outside, eager for the pounding of your heart and the burning in your lungs to drive out conscious thought. You never activate your Aura while exercising, doing so would make the sprint effortless, and by extension: pointless. But even without it you can run longer and harder than any of the Academy's students, even the fresh-faced track and field types. Which means you won't be able to escape your thoughts for several minutes, at least.

You run almost blindly across the winding footpaths of the Academy grounds. Autumn might just be beginning but this far north the air is already frigid, threatening to leave you blue if this run lasts more than a few minutes. Not that you've planned that far ahead, of course, concentrating on just putting one foot far in front of the other, long strides propelling you forward.

It doesn't work, of course. You can't just run away from your problems, certainly not _literally_. But even physical exhaustion provides no respite and eventually you abandon the effort. You're left wandering the grounds, alone with your thoughts, nothing changed except for your now-labored breaths. You're alone, on an earthen path winding through a wooded part of the grounds. It's scenic, if mostly used by kids stupid enough to try to sneak out after curfew and get high.

You pause, shivering slightly in the wind.

With a sigh that has little to do with your run, you begin making your way back towards the Academy proper, trying to put your thoughts back in order. Weekend or not you still have a full itinerary, and you'd just wasted twenty minutes on what was basically a temper tantrum. You'd made a mistake, _yes_ , it was time to acknowledge it, figure out what you did wrong, and move on…

So easy to _say_ , so hard to _do_. It's surreal. Lack of willpower is never an issue for you. But still… you _know_ what the problem was but can't for the life of you fix it…

You stumble, your foot catching on something, and you barely manage to keep your balance. Spinning around, you find yourself staring down at a strange little creature. It takes your brain a good five seconds to recognize it as a porcupine, and a fairly small one at that. You're still a little baffled. While you know porcupines live in the _general_ area around the Academy this is the first time you've seen one on the actual grounds. The perimeter walls and the horde of groundskeepers usually mean the land is pretty inhospitable for anything larger than a rabbit.

You crouch down, squatting over it, furrowing your brow at the strange noises it's making. Whimpers? You realize a moment later that's it's injured, moving strangely, maybe limping. There are a spots of dark red blood trailing behind it. You don't really know what hunts porcupines, but most of the bigger mammals - coyotes, wolves, wolverines - tend to keep their distance from the Academy. Like the oldest Grimm, they'd learned that staying away from Huntsmen was key to their survival.

You reach out, trying to find the source of the bleeding-

" _Autsch_!"

You let slip a curse as you find yourself pricked by a handful of quills. The porcupine had bristled at your encroachment, and a dozen-odd quills are now embedded in your flesh. You bite your tongue, lambasting yourself for having failed to raise your protective Aura. Another penalty for your emotional distractions. With a flare of your Aura you expel the quills from your skin. The minute wounds seal almost instantly, but the pain still lingers, the reminder of a phantom wound.

You flex your fingers a few times, making sure your full range of motion has been restored. The only trace of an injury are a few speckles of blood. In your haste to try to get close to the porcupine you hadn't paid attention to the quills, despite knowing full well that they were there.

You have half a mind to leave the creature there, no doubt to its death. If neither an infection nor a wild predator get it, some bored Huntsman-in-training no doubt will. But what do you care?

…

With the utmost gentleness, you reach down to scoop up the porcupine. It's no happier being touched the second time around, though _this_ time your Aura is properly shielding you, and its quills bounce harmlessly off your skin. You keep it from squirming away for the duration of the trek back to your quarters. You pass a few students but none who dare raise so much as an eyebrow.

The porcupine is dropped unceremoniously on your bathroom floor. You pull out a small medicine kit, which you've been extensively trained to use. Not for yourself, of course, but for others with weaker Auras. It'll be good practice, you tell yourself, patching something up, nursing it back to heath.

Your tools are laid out before you - bandages, tweezers, antibiotic cream. You suspect the porcupine is none-too-happy about its captivity, but it looks too close to the brink of death to do anything other than bristle. With your Aura up you don't have to worry about being hurt, but you suspect it's not great for those quills to be repeatedly jammed against an immovable barrier, either.

With a sigh, you set about figuring out how best to get close to it. How to get through the quills without hurting it or yourself.

Like you said, good practice.

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic in my ongoing series of ' _works the author isn't really sure are good, but figures they might as well publish because apparently that's the only way anyone gets better_ '. And 'me getting better' is why your comments are so welcomed. Again, different from my usual fare, so feedback on anything is appreciated. Messing around with tone, perspective, and a dash of character study atop it.
> 
> So yeah, actually inspired by the _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ episode "A Transfer" (which deals with the metaphor a lot more directly than "Hedgehog Dilemma's" does), and I have to admit it's one of my favorite metaphors. Wanted to try applying it to Winter and Weiss. Not sure if I pulled it off, particularly since I also wanted to muck around with a bunch of other literary techniques, but hey, practice. More emotionally subdued than I intended, definitely. I'll probably be back to writing smut soon enough.
> 
> <tangent> "Farewells and remembrances" are things I've been thinking a lot about in the extended Luna/Shawcross corpus. Not smart enough to figure out how it fits together, but there is _some_ kind of memory-related recurring theme in both _RWBY_ and the later _Red vs. Blue_ seasons, I feel.  </tangent>
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


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